Lancaster Country Day 67 Annville-Cleona 58 : wrap

Written by: Dell Jackson on January 5, 2024

Lancaster Country Day 67 Annville-Cleona 58
Jan, 5, 2023

The LCDay Cougars (5-4 and 1-2) earned their first W for Section 4 play with a high scoring game at LCDay.
The AC Dutchmen (6-4 and 0-2) were playing without big man Jonathan Shay, 6’3” jn. LCDay talked about building and keeping leads (they were up by 5 vs Lancaster Mennonite earlier this week at the half). Coach Shultz stated that “all section games are tough games….We focused in practice on what we needed to do…What do we need to do after halftime to maintain our focus?” Check on that idea for tonight at least.

Both teams can shoot the ball from distance. LCDay made 11 triples in the game – led by Jordan Ashby (4) and Chris Dukes (3), whereas the Dutchmen netted nine – Elisha Slabach (4) and Anthony Pena (5). Perimeter skills were on display. The difference was that LCDay got some runouts and attacked the basket a bit better than AC.

The first and third quarters were key for the Cougars. LCDay ran out to a 16-7 lead after one and then pretty much put the game away with a 26-13 third. The Cougars started the game on an 11-1 run led by Ashby and Dukes. Dukes displayed some big time range on his jumper (when we asked what his range was we got not sure from Chris 🙂 )Ashby can shoot the three ball but also has a nice mid range game as he can use a jump stop to get into the lane. AC countered late with back to back triples by Pena.

Elisha Slabach, 6’3” jn for AC would net 13 points in the second period to keep AC in the game. Slabach can score in a variety of ways- threes, drives, and excellent from the line. The Dutchmen closed the gap to 28-22 off a Slabach triple around the 3 minute mark of the second – this was as close as AC would get for the rest of the game. The quarter ended at 36 -26 as Ashby hit a three ball late in the half.

Coach Shultz’ halftime talk must have been very good as the Cougars put together a 20-4 run to take a commanding lead at 56-30 with under 3 minutes left in the third quarter. The last bucket was on a follow by Kane Kirby 6’ sophomore. AC scratched their way back to get to within 10 on a follow by Dominic Casciotti only to have LCDay pop a triple (Chris Tucker) to close out the period at 62-39.

LCDay didn’t score a lot in the 4th as Coach Shultz got some PT for most of the LCDay players. AC, to their credit, played hard until the end, but the Dutchmen could never get the game closer than 10 points. Lancaster Country Day coasted home with a 67-58 victory.

Points:
AC: Elisha Slabach 24, Anthony Pena 17
LCDay: Jordon Ashby 20, Chris Dukes 19, Jeremy Ouilikon 10

Unofficial Stats
Rebounds: AC 29 , LCDay 26
Turnovers: AC 12 , LCday 15